Each year, SIPA provides a limited number of competitive internship grants to qualifying students to help defray the costs of unpaid or low-paying summer internships. Individual grants are advertised by OCS early in the spring semester and all application deadlines occur in April. Information session dates and application instructions can be found in SIPAlink and the OCS Weekly News e-newsletter.

OCS strongly encourages students to begin both their internship search and internship funding search in the fall semester, as several application deadlines for external summer internship grants occur between December and March. For a sample list of external grant opportunities, please refer to the Funding Sources for Summer Internships fact sheet.

Below are general eligibility requirements for all SIPA internship grants, however, eligibility requirements will vary for each grant. Please refer to each grant's Job ID listing in SIPAlink for specific information.

Student Eligibility

Student must be matriculated at SIPA or in a dual degree program with SIPA

Student must be in a full-time program and in good academic standing

Student must be returning to SIPA or the dual degree university in the fall semester

Student must never have received the same grant for which they are applying (e.g. in a prior academic year)

Students in the PEPM, PESP, EMPA, and Ph.D. programs are ineligible to apply

Internship Eligibility

The internship must be relevant to ongoing coursework and provide professional work experience.

The internship offer must be secured at the time of application.

"Independent study" internships or academic courses abroad are not eligible.

Total compensation for the internship from the internship organization or other funding sources unpaid or is less than $3,000 USD.

Only summer internship positions are eligible.

Positions must be a minimum of six weeks in duration.

Internships in student's family-owned organizations are not eligible.

Travel to a country of which the student is a citizen does not qualify, unless the student is also a permanent resident (green card holder or citizen) of the US and will provide proof of this status.

All student and internship eligibility requirements must be met in order to qualify for consideration.

Grant applications will not be considered complete nor eligible unless all required documents are appropriately submitted to OCS by the application deadline.

IMPORTANT: If you receive a SIPA internship grant and can no longer undertake the internship, please notify Tara Johnson (tj2238@columbia.edu) in the Office of Career Services.